Simon C

I play in a venue with a small stage. I use a short scale headless at that venue. It’s not quite the same as your situation in that we do have a stage, but it does mean the stage is less cramped and I can face the audience directly (rather than having to stand at a funny angle). And, very importantly, I don’t need to worry about wacking the singer on the back of the head.

I read the stuff above about contributing to society. I think the Jam Night I go to does that. Bands and punters all mixed in together having a laugh, a sing, a few drinks a laugh and maybe a dance. The format makes it so easy to do, because if you aren’t playing then you are one of the punters. Everyone seems to have a smile on their face - a proper “feel-good” night. This is us playing basket case.

A “cacophony”? A “mix”? A “compression”?

I was a Newbie last time, so don’t have the main hall for comparison. I think part of the problem was the choices we then made in setting up. In some part that may have been me getting there shortly after @Hamster and @cetera and making the 1st choice of room. I originally set up in the refectory as it was one of the bigger rooms. Then it started pissing it down and was really noisy on the roof, so I moved to one of the smaller rooms. A lot of us ended up in the smaller rooms. Maybe we’d have been better off making more us of the hall where you set up @prowla and the refectory - it didn’t rain all day and I’m fairly confident it would have been easier to hear kit in the refectory than it proved to be in the 2 smaller rooms.

My end Q2 report: I took the fretless in for the “how to spend the Guitar Guitar voucher I was given for my birthday” set-up. The guitar tech said it was well set up, so just try different strings. The cobalt strings didn’t work for me, as they had too much friction for slides - so the chromes are back on it. I liked the sound though so they’ll get on my shortscale some time this year - so I think this just counts as an early replacement string buy. I bought a new watch as suggested by @neepheid somewhere on page 8 of this thread. I gave the Lego a miss though Neepheid 😊. I tried out a few Fenders from both the US and Mexico (not really doing it for me) and a Yamaha BB434. The Yamaha did do it for me, but I’d still pick my G&L L2K over it, so I don’t think it is an imminent risk. One of the inputs has gone on my audio interface but unless I start recording bass or keys and vocals in the same take I don’t need 2 inputs, so can’t justify that on replacement of broken gear. I’ve just been told I will get a bonus in July. It isn’t enough for a new Ferrari or even a Fodera, but it will cover a number of the other boutique bass makers. I haven’t really thought of anything I “need” skiing or cycling wise so the bonus is the risk. Maybe I’ll just bank it, do a bit of research (whilst still enjoying my existing gear) and decide whether to order it in early January. For dramatic effect I could even join the 2024 gear abstinence thread then exit early doors with a picture 😀. Summary: The new strings will get used this year Watch bought; Lego declined Bonus a likely problem but a plan to deal with it. Who else is still in?

Thanks for all the responses. I took the bass in to the guitar tech who’d suggested I should try the strings. He agreed with me that they had a high friction on slides compared to other strings. He had a go at cleaning them but didn’t get anything off them, so concluded it was the material itself. They pretty much made the fretless unplayable so I’ve taken them off and put the chromes back on. I may try them on my short scale fretted bass when the strings next need changing. My conclusion from this string experiment is: these don’t work on a fretless bass (or at least they don’t for me).

That was very good. That woke me up on a Saturday morning😀.

My L2K is. The on-line bass tutor often comments on how good the tone is. It’s really nice to play too. I’d say it’s the nicest instrument I’ve played - that includes some pianos that are worth tens of thousands. The downside is that it’s heavy, but it balances well on a strap and I do use a wide strap so it may distribute the weight better than a narrow one.

Thanks for sharing. There’s plenty of energy in your band. The contrast between the somewhat impolite lyrics, followed by a polite “thank you very much” when the song ended made me smile.😎

Jam night was fun this month. All the bands were really on it with so great singalongs and leg shakers. Our usual singer couldn’t join us so the guitarist and I shared vocals. I’ve done a bit of backing vocals in the past, but haven’t sung lead for over 20 years (it showed I think!). One of the other musicians joined us for Brown Eyed Girl, so a proper jam. Here’s a video montage of our set: https://youtu.be/_6olto1VOLw

A do like a bit of footage in this thread. Your band sounds great.

Hi everyone. Based on a Luthier's suggestion, I have put some Ernie Ball Cobalt Flatwound Strings on my fretless. I won't go into why the advice was given as I think it will muddy the conversation. I put them on the bass. For sure it sounds different to the ones I had on previously. However they feel quite sticky. Almost as though there is marmalade or other sticky substance on the strings. So slides don't feel particularly smooth. They aren't as quick either as there is an initial resistance to movement (maybe "highish friction" would be a better description than sticky). They certainly don't feel "Slinky" I have put "Fast Fret" on the strings, but it doesn't appear to be making much of a difference. Have others had a similar experience with these strings? Thanks in anticipation, Simon

Excellent. I do like people sharing vids of their gigs.

Well as you asked, I do quite like your hat. Hat opinion is mixed on here though: I was once congratulated for not wearing a hat.

I use in ear ones by “Alpine”. PMT sell them. They have three layers of attenuation which you select by choice of insert - I use the middle one. They seem to attenuate the loud noises but leave lower levels alone. So at pub gigs I can hear conversations fine, but don’t have my ears ringing the next morning because the music has been ridiculously loud. At Jam Night I wear them the whole night, even when playing. They are joined by a chord: I thought this was handy for wearing, but note one of the above contributors thinks it may also be a safety benefit.

“A second public spanking”. It’s amazing what one can get online nowadays.😜

My main goal for 2023 is to improve my muscle memory and to trust it, so I don’t have to look down at the fingerboard all the time. It’s going ok. I video my self approximately once a month and post it to YouTube or Vimeo, and I can see improvement. However for this month’s effort it was a more complex bass line that moved all over the neck, so I went easy on myself and allowed myself to look down - I’d have never got the line down if I’d been looking up most of the time. I play fretted and fretless. I do think that having good technique and fretting just behind the fret (on a fretted bass) translates to better intonation on the fretless, so I try to be accurate when playing the fretted bass. In turn this allows me to trust my muscle memory when playing fretless.

Are you using your cab(s) for FOH or just fold back? If it’s just fold back, have you tried the cab on a stand? I have one that angles my combo amp so that it acts more like a wedge, but without direct contact with the floor. The stand has rubber feet so I guess that acts as a bit of isolation. I’ve never felt the need to try any further isolation, such as a carpet.

What a life - an international cricketer then getting paid for playing music. It's a shame I'm not good enough at either - or maybe the careers officer at my school didn't know it was a potential career path 😁. They both played in good West Indies teams too, particularly Richardson -though I'm sure Richie would think the pinnacle of his career was playing for Yorkshire😜 .

It was Jam Night on Thursday. We had an early slot, and with it getting lighter it was the 1st time I hadn’t had to sit there pre slot with a UV torch charging the dots. A mate of my son played guitar with us for the 1st time. I’d heard him play before in a duo with my son and he’s done plenty of weddings and busking slots. (And linking to the previous post, I used to coach him at cricket). I assumed he’d played in bands before, but apparently this was his 1st time. He did a good job, and his US Fender is a bit of a looker. He’s up for playing with us next time which is a good, particlularly as he can sing and the singer can’t make it. 90s or so of clips below: https://youtu.be/niKZr2ZADVM https://youtu.be/jRGBNGUdiGg

I used to. I coached it for 9 or 10 years too. One of the greatest ever fast bowlers is a decent bass player. I’ve a vague memory that his band once played at my cricket club. A guy called Curtly Ambrose. I’m not sure if he’s on this forum or not 😀.

One of the sound-techs got back to me. The monitor mix is eq'ed, but not independently. So the monitor feed (IEM or stand monitor) will get the eq that the sound tech is sending to Front of House. The same is true for compression and gates. So the difference between monitor mix and FoH is that those of us in the band can put what we like in the monitor, at the level we want it, and wherever we want it in the stereo field. But it is eq’ed.

I don't notice the "harshness" you describe (I have the KZ ZS10 pros - not sure I have a "X" model). I don't do any eq myself (other than the balance and stereo field separation of each band member), though I guess the sound-techs may be doing something with the monitor mix. I've asked one of the sound-techs if they do any "eq"ing of the monitor mix and if they do anything different for IEMs vs what they would do for stand monitors. I'll report back if / when I get an answer. Note that we have a stereo monitor mix. This means I'm able to separate different band members using the stereo field. I think this allows me to run the mix at lower volume than I would otherwise need to. I guess the lower volume would help to limit any harshness there may be in any particular frequency range (but I'm no ones' idea of a good sound-technician or acoustic engineer, so this is supposition on my part).

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